36 THE BOOK OF THE APPLE 



trees until they were ripe, a great deal of the storing 

 that is now necessary could be dispensed with, but, 

 as before remarked, as it is neither safe nor wise to 

 leave our apples upon the trees after early November 

 or late October, gathering and storing are essential to 

 the preservation of a winter and spring supply. Some 

 of the varieties will be ripe when they are gathered, 

 but the majority of the mid-season and late ones will 

 not. There is one important point to be observed 

 in the gathering of apples, as indeed of all fruits, 

 and that is, to take great care not to bruise them. 

 Half the battle of successfully preserving apples 

 throughout the winter lies in the thorough observ- 

 ance of this detail ; for, if an apple is bruised when 

 gathered, decay is almost certain sooner or later to be 

 the result. Therefore handle the fruits with much 

 care, placing them gently in the baskets made use of. 

 Our method of gathering apples (where great quantities 

 were put away) was to have large oblong-shaped 

 baskets about two feet six inches wide and five feet 

 long. These were placed upon a spring barrow able 

 to carry three together, and were thus ensured a 

 journey to the fruit-room free from jolting, the con- 

 struction of the barrow on springs being such that it 

 gave upon the slightest resistance. Were the baskets 

 of fruit placed upon an ordinary barrow, they would 

 probably be badly bruised by the time they reached the 

 fruit-room, as each stone or dip in the road encountered 

 would in some measure disarrange the fruit. As the 

 apples were gathered from the tree, they were placed into 

 a peck-basket, which is lined inside with leather. This 

 basket had a handle that enabled one, by means of a 

 double iron hook, to hang it to the rungs of the ladder. 

 It would be almost impossible for a man to hold the 

 basket in one hand and gather the fruit with the other. 

 When the peck-basket was full it was lowered, and the 



